Various industrial protocols are employed to support automated manufacturing operations and communications. These can include device protocols, mid-level protocols between the device level and the control level, and upper-level protocols such as Ethernet that has been adapted to communicate via industrial control objects among factories and on to high-level networks such as the Internet. In one specific example of such an industrial protocol, the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP™) encompasses a comprehensive suite of attributes, messages and services, organized as objects, for the enablement of manufacturing automation application objectives—control, safety, synchronization, motion, configuration and information collection. Further, it enables users to integrate these manufacturing applications with enterprise-level Ethernet networks and the Internet. Supported by hundreds of vendors around the world, CIP provides users with a unified communication architecture throughout the manufacturing enterprise. The CIP protocol allows users to benefit today from the many advantages of open networks while protecting their existing automation investments when upgrading in the future.
Through the addition of functionally specialized objects, the CIP protocol provides a coherent integration of control, motion and synchronization, configuration and diagnostics, and safety information. This protocol includes seamless bridging and routing without the added cost and complexity of bridges and proxies. Further, the protocol provides freedom to deploy interoperable, multivendor systems, allowing users to choose best-of-breed products, with the assurance of competitive prices and low integration cost. This includes single, media independent protocol for all network adaptations of CIP—EtherNet/IP™, DeviceNet™ CompoNet™, and ControlNet™—that allows users to select the best network or networks for their application while still minimizing their overall investment in system engineering, installation, integration and commissioning. The CIP protocol also integrates support of Modbus® server devices into the CIP architectures with Modbus translation services for originator devices on CIP; allows devices supporting Modbus TCP and EtherNet/IP to reside on the same TCP/IP network—or even in the same device. Modbus integration is accomplished by the usage of objects to create an abstraction. Modbus is then accessed as if the Modbus devices were native CIP devices. It should be recognized that the functionality provided by a CIP object can be extended into other non-CIP networks in a similar manner.
A key topic that has gained prominence in modern industrial manufacturing is the ability to efficiently manage power and energy within a plant or across a set of plants and an associated supply chain, where such management spans a wide geography and communicates over networks. This includes the ability to understand and track in real time, where energy is being generated, transmitted, distributed and utilized. For instance, Cap and Trade policies may have to be considered in the management of a particular plant or even across broader energy domains that may be associated with a grid. Some of the energy management must be coordinated with the grid such as the ability to receive energy from the grid or conversely return unused energy back to the grid for appropriate credit. Unfortunately, existing industrial protocols do not support a standardized ability to aggregate energy data or manage energy resources let alone communicate or facilitate control in even the most basic energy demand applications. Presently, the difficulty in automation due to the lack of uniform methods of energy management information exchange leads most often to a manual exercise that is far from an efficient and responsive method for controlling and managing complex energy flows that dynamically change over time.